


Turning 'Round the Corner Now

by TrufflesTheMushroom



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrufflesTheMushroom/pseuds/TrufflesTheMushroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been eight months, and John's going out to Harry's. Soldiers don't cry; soldiers look straight ahead, no matter how broken they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning 'Round the Corner Now

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, Reichenbach. Oh, oh, Reichenbach.

-

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

-

John awakes long before his alarm goes off. His eyes creak open as if rusted shut in the quietest hour of the morning, when the light is blue and awash with the echo of yesterday's black night. Slowly he lets out a breath and unclenches his teeth; he doesn't know why he'd been clenching them in the first place. He opens his eyes and stares at the wallpaper, unblinkingly, tongue absentmindedly working around his teeth to check for any wear.

There isn't any, though it feels like his teeth have long since been ground to dust.

He turns on his back, unwilling to move, still staring at the wallpaper.

At last, after a moment of pure, cold silence, the alarm starts to screech. Automatically John reaches out to slam it silent before he sighs through his nose and heaves himself up.

The walk to the bathroom in the hallway is cold against his bare feet, but he barely registers the sharp tang of the linoleum chill under the pads of his toes. Instead he reaches for the tap and cups a pool of lukewarm water, splashing it over his face.

He tells his hands to reach down for another handful, but they stay over his face, fingers traitorously rubbing at his eyes. Beads of water make strands of unruly hair cling to his cheeks and he doesn't make any move to brush them away. John just stands there, barefooted in front of the bathroom sink, head in his hands.

The tap is still running.

-

The reporters have long since abandoned the front steps of 221 Baker Street. John opens the door and steps out into the pale London morning, one trouser leg in front of the other, without being accosted.

-

On the way to the tube station, a gleaming black car pulls up and the window rolls down, revealing the face of yet another hideously beautiful woman. This time it's the olive-skinned one with fat lips; _Phoebe? Echo?_ Or was it _Thalia-_

She looks up from her iPad and wrinkles her nose at him. Before she can speak, John gives her a rude gesture and continues on his way, limping unsteadily and yet too proud to excavate the cane from the back of his wardrobe.

-

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

-

Harriet greets John at the door with a lopsided smile.

Immediately, John rakes her over with his eyes. Gained weight, but she's wearing a new, low-cut blouse in a bright color. There's a healthy glow to her cheeks and little golden studs gleaming in her ears.

She's gotten them re-pierced. John remembers when Harry started to throw things, filthy and haggard, so lost in herself that she let the holes become infected. They closed shut before he left for Afghanistan. Harriet never bothered with them after that. Until now.

So. Healthy. Newly restored confidence. Someone's encouraged her to keep up her appearance. Harry, on her best days, isn't the type to go out alone if she can help it, so she wasn't alone when she had them done.

"Everything's all right with Felicia, then?"

Harriet laughs. "How did you know? Yeah, we got back together last week or so. And she's brilliant, just wait 'till you meet her in person, she's read all your-"

And suddenly silence falls.

There's a chilling moment where Harriet's eyes scream, _'Oh, you dolt, Harriet Lillian Watson, look at what you've done, messed up again you stupid bitch'_ , and John, taking pity, shakes his head. "Tell her I'm not signing anything. So, can I come in or not?"

Harriet doesn't even bother to hide her relief as she steps back as if electrocuted and begins to blabber on about Felicia.

"She's done Bart's too," she says, taking John's good leather coat and hanging it up. "Four years behind you, and I'd bet you two could compare notes or whatever. She's chuffed about meeting you, actually, and she's said she'd like to hear from you about the war, but if you want I'll tell her to shove it if you-"

"Harry, what's going on?"

"What?" She immediately looks guilty.

John cocks his heard to one side, heading over to the kitchen. "Tell me nothing's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong!" Harriet insists as she follows him. She pulls a glass from the cabinets and holds it under the dispenser on the refrigerator, little wedges of ice clattering down with little pings. Harriet pushes a button and a stream of water pours over the ice, cracking it. "I just really, really want you to like her."

John gratefully takes the glass and drinks deep. "Well, don't toady to me like that. It's creepy. It's almost as bad as when Sherlock did it to get me to do something."

"Oh." Harriet's voice is deceptively light. She starts on what she thinks is a routine. "You hear from him, then? Or has he just run off again, the sod?"

"No, he's still gone. Somewhere."

Harriet pauses mid-step. She drums her fingers over the island's tiled surface, wetting her lips and averting her eyes. John tracks her movement in his peripheral vision. Classic decision-making body language; anticipation of outcome; ah, and here comes the daring leap, Harry-style...

"Hey, Johnny. D'you maybe... Look. About Sherlock. The news said that he was dead for reals."

John sighs. He sets the glass down on the island. "The news is wrong a lot."

"I don't get how you can be so sure-"

"I felt his pulse. I was concussed then but I did, Harry, I really did. It was definitely there. And I know him."

"You knew him for eighteen months."

Felt like eighteen minutes. Felt like eighteen years.

John decides to keep that thought in his head. "I _know_ him. It's just like him to up and take off like that, actually. And here I am, again, doing as I do until he comes back with a new story for my blog."

"And you're going to... wait?"

"Yes."

No hesitation. Just an answer. The answer. The final answer.

At last, Harry looks him in the eye and gives a tiny, chubby smile. "Well. When he does come back, give him a good smack in the face for me and tell him to marry you."

" _Okay_ , Harry, okay."

Outside the dew drips off the slender twigs that make up a sorry-looking shrub on Harry's window sill. Red clay pot with red ribbon round the top, new, fresh water stain on the bottom. John remembers it from a Tesco Garden Centre special deal catalogue from three weeks prior. Harry never shops at the garden center, so, gift it is.

Gift from whom? John squints at it, making out a pink-edged card tied to the ribbon. Think, think. Data, data, data. Classy brand, not normally packaged with Tesco potted plants. Bought separately at a well-to-do mall of some sort, but no one goes out to buy just greeting cards, so they were most likely a side purchase. It could very well have been a leftover from the holidays but the card doesn't look themed, so the giftee thinks ahead.

Think, think. Which of Harry's friends are well-to-do and responsible? John goes through the list of friends he'd met at Harry's last birthday. Darren the biker with the teeth, Lisa the artist with the nice bum and... Leslie the writer with the nicer bum.

Darren the biker. Has wife, unlikely to have gifted Harry with something so close to flowers.

Lisa the artist. Not lesbian but caring and aware of Harry's recent achievements with her rehabilitation. Likely.

Leslie the writer. Even more likely, seeing as a potted plant is not an easy thing to deliver and he lives just a block away.

John takes a stab in the dark.

"Leslie's not going to be happy if he ever finds out you've been killing that plant. Is it that you forget to water it or you water it too much?"

Harry starts, turns around and then laughs when she gets it. "Oh, big brother, you're slipping. One, it was Lisa. Two, it's Felicia's. She got it for her promotion at the clinic."

John looks down at the glass on the counter. "Well. I'm no Sherlock Holmes."

-

John decides to take a walk around the block that surrounds Harry's flat before heading back to the tube. The air is crisp and tangy with the smells of the city, and overhead the sky crowns a brilliant skyline of tall, gleaming buildings.

Slowly he makes his way to a small park in the area, patchy grass and cracking asphalt and all. There are no children in sight, though the softly billowing wind is rocking a set of swings back and forth. A ghost child could be sitting there, kicking her feet up and breathing in the cold, sweet silence.

John remembers used to love this ratty old playground, the only thing that reminded him of his early childhood in Kent before the big move.

He stands in front of the grass-edged park and tries again to deduce.

It keeps his thoughts busy. Otherwise he might start sobbing again, and no Captain cries.

Empty paper drink cup sitting next to a greasy paper bag on the bench. The straw is chewed thoroughly, indicating a fidgety person...

-

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

-

By the time John arrives back in London, it's dark and noisy, pomegranate-pink fluorescent lights and garish orange street lamps lighting his way back to Baker Street.

Again, a highly polished black cab pulls up when he rounds a kerb, but this time, John's had enough.

The door opens and a different girl, chocolate-skinned and long-limbed, gives him a look.

John isn't having it.

Breathing hard through his nose, John approaches the car, leans into it with one hand gripping the door, and says, " _No_. Not today, and not tomorrow. Not the day after that or the day after that. So you can tell Mycroft Holmes, Iola or Callisto or whoever you are, that under no circumstances do I want to _have a chat_. Eight months really is an _awfully_ long time to have waited for a flatmate but I'll wait for a thousand years more if I have to, and I wouldn't expect him to understand with his _fat head_. So text him with that clever toy of yours that he can shove his prick _up his own arse_ and dance for the Queen Mother, all right?"

Iola/Callisto has the gall to look offended.

-

John's feet have gone numb from the walking, and all he wants to do is heat up some of Mrs. Hudson's leftovers and have an early sleep.

He almost has his keys in the door when someone calls out from behind him, "Oi! Doctor Watson!"

It's a grubby young man with a floppy beanie hat and several coats of chipping varnish on his nails. John's sure he's seen him play the ukulele for tips a few streets up, but he's never spoken to him before.

John turns back to the door, fumbling with his keys. A network kid. He says softly under his breath, "Sorry. He isn't here."

"I know, sir. I'm here for you."

He frowns and turns back around. The tatty teenager holds out a package with both hands.

John stares for a moment before he takes it and turns it over. It's a flat, beat-up bundle of brown paper tied with fishing line and an old shoelace.

The boy says helpfully, "It's for you, by the way. Dunno who it's from but Jamie from the bridge says it's from really far away. So. Um. G'night, Doctor Watson."

For a moment, John watches the boy retreat back into the darkness before he looks down at the package in his hands. Slowly, hands ceasing their trembling, he pulls at the knots until they fall loose. He peels back the creased and battered paper and tips the makeshift envelope over his hand.

A single fortune cookie, still in its wrapper, neatly tumbles out.

-

Back inside, John stares at the screen of his laptop.

For months, his blog has been left untouched.

No matter how hard he tries, he can only ever type out one sentence.

One sentence, over and over and over again.

-

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

My name is John Hamish Watson, and I am waiting.

-


End file.
